Basu is lucky. He writes for NHL.com, which means his story can focus on the Devils.

Anyone trying to write about the Canadiens is doomed to … well, trying to pick it up by the clean end.

“I have one word for this game,” said Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated.

“Refund.”

Imagine, Farber added, if this were the first live hockey game you’d ever attended. And you’d laid out $100-plus for a ticket.

Basu, Farber and I got in for free, of course.

And the customers got what they paid for when they saw “New Jersey Devils” printed on their tickets.

Chris Stevenson, who writes hockey for the Sun chain, described what we saw as “pre-2003″ hockey.

Vintage stuff, before the lockout and before the rule changes that opened hockey up and made it a more pleasing spectator sport.

Someone forgot to tell Jacques Lemaire, who forgot to tell Pat Burns, who forgot to tell Larry Robinson, who forgot to tell Claude Julien, who forgot to tell Brent Sutter.

John MacLean, the latest Devils coach, played for Lemaire. So did Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta.

The style involves an aggressive forecheck, neutral zone trapping, clogging up the passing lanes … doing everything to slow the world’s fastest game to a somnambulant crawl.

For the final nine minutes of the first period, NEITHER TEAM had a shot on goal. The Bell Centre crowd was lulled into surly near-silence, erupting only to boo hapless referee Stéphane Auger.

Ilya Kovalchuk earned his ridiculous salary playing 21 minutes, during which one of the game’s most dynamic players had one shot and no hits. Welcome to New Jersey, Ilya. Let’s get to work on turning you into John Madden.

It’s anti-hockey – not fun to watch, but the success of the Devils suggests it’s effective.

And it helps to have a goaltender who’ll be in the Hall of Fame a New Jersey nanosecond after he becomes eligible.

That was Martin F. Brodeur’s ninth shutout against the Canadiens. It seems like more.

In addition to stopping 29 shots – most from the perimeter, many right at him – Brodeur suckered Gionta, his old teammate, into two penalties.

Martin F.’s current teammates ensured the Canadiens would generate no speed on their breakouts and little sustained pressure in the Devils’ zone. By the third period, Jacques Martin had shuffled his lines – Mike Cammalleri with Gomez and Gionta, Lars Eller with Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostitsyn – but nothing clicked.

Some stats:

• Cammalleri, Gionta and P.K. Subban had 17 of the Canadiens’ 29 shots – eight by the Captain.

• Josh Gorges and Hal Gill were each minus-3.

• Alexandre Picard played a solid 15:46, had three hits and wasn’t on for any GA.

• Carey Price faced only 20 shots but made more spectacular saves than Martin F.

• Eller was involved and on the puck all night in 10:25.

• Subban’s 24 minutes were high for both teams.

• Andy Greene had eight of NJ’s 21 blocked shots. Roman Hamrlik had four of the Canadiens’ 14.

The Canadiens’ power-play took another 0-for. It’s been blanked in five of the six games the team has played and is 1-for-20 on the season.

Martin calls his PP “a work in progress” – and we’d better hope progress progresses when Andrei Markov returns, because if this team fires blanks with the man advantage all season …

I’d change my mind if he hadn’t blamed everyone but himself in media interviews, admitted he didn’t feel like trying in his final season when he left and tried harder when he was here but he didn’t. Maybe 0 was overly dramatic but I’m tired of lazy players showing up in MTL and thinking they’re entitled to their roster spots.

You want to succeed when you don’t have all the talent in the world, you have to show up each game. Latendresse didn’t consider that. He got the boot.

Carey’s last shutout was November 11th, 2008. 4-0 win against the Senators. Chris Higgins had a hattrick and Latendresse scored the other goal. And Alex Auld was in the net for the Senators. Haha, soooo long ago.

One is still higher than zero, and I just needed to give one counterexample to disprove your post. I’m sure that if you insist on “clutch” (which, BTW, is largely in the eye of the beholder), I could go back and find more. But what would be the point, right? You’re not going to change your mind.

He’s not as good as Koivu, that much is obvious, but he’s better than Pouliot. And you need your 2.5 million wingers as much as you need your 5 million centers, just can’t expect the same from them.

Sooo.last nite after work I pick up a 8 pack of Wildcat beer ..and get ready for the game . On RDS …the family thing I’m a bit wonky .. cause I don’t know any french..no problem I say as I do know the word for ” He scores ” !!! except when I yell it out from the living room I scare the shit out of my ols dog ..who heads for the kitchen !!. Man was I dissapointed to say the lest . Outplayed..outskated..outhustled.. and flicking our sticks atthe puck istead of moving our feet ..Gomez floating around avoiding traffic ..again … no shots on goal .. he has 8 in six games total .. Gionta taking 40 foot slappers at Marty ..that ain’t gonna work .. and Eller playing on ever line EXCEPT the G love line ..Brutal giveaways by Spacek etc….ect..etc.. our PP is 1 for 21 …..thank goodnes for our PK ..

A real stinker …the best part of the nite .. I have 6 Wildcats left over !!!! Time to move on and forget the nite !!!

I remember one game vs. Washington which most people remeber for Ovie’s 3-goal 4-point performance. Nobody remembers that that game was decided in OT. Nobody remembers Lats’ 2-goal 3-point night, including the tying goal with seconds to spare. With his two feet in blue paint, but he never went to the net either.

I think that Martin got the “real” lines in this game and by the end of the season the top-6 will be 13-11-21 and 81-14-46. However, Eller may not be quite ready for that yet, which leaves the Habs top-6 in limbo with an obvious hole until then.

“the Devils are back to their “penalty-free”
clutch/grab/hook/hold/trip/interfere style of keeping a team to the
perimeter and slowing the pace to a crawl”

This bears pointing out a bit, I think, that the Devils’ discipined reputation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If another team (the Habs say) put it into their heads to play Devils hockey, they’d start making tracks to the penalty box. But the Devils get the benefit of the doubt. Witness sacred cow Brodeur’s diving against Gionta. Of course, gotta protect the “Hall of Famer”. And then people wonder why players won’t go to the net vs. Brodeur.

There’s a lot I could argue with in the last while I haven’t responded to because I know it’s not going anywhere, but I will argue the ‘we let Latendresse get away’ crap when I want to and I feel like doing that this particular morning

You know what? I’m thinking about the 08-09 Detroit game, we were sitting on a SO for Price there and than The Mule managed a crazy play and scored. I guess after a while, the potential SOs for Price that went awry all kind of blend together.

Why do people insist on raising a guy on a pedestal who never gave a damn when he was in Montreal?

If Latendresse’s last name was Larionov the things he’d be called around here… Canadians show a lack of heart, it’s a coach’s fault or someone else’s, never their own. Russians do, it’s because they’re money-hungry mercenaries.

Habs had an opportunity to attack them but didn’t. Instead they sent Marty practice shots, being oh so kind to warm him up by not trying too hard to hurt his feelings. Funny how it is… Their new coach wanted to bring more offense to the team, to actually try and fit the square peg of Kovalchuk into the round hole (that’s one expensive floater, Lou), but Marty freaked out publicly as he saw his performance take a hit, his save percentage go awry, and threw his defense (or what was left of them) under the bus. Four days off to sort that problem out, and the Devils are back to their “penalty-free” clutch/grab/hook/hold/trip/interfere style of keeping a team to the perimeter and slowing the pace to a crawl. We saw when PK was given carte blanche though, they had a problem in dealing with speed. If the Habs had done that earlier and NOT waited until the 3rd period to try and jump on them, they might have scored at least one goal.

But who am I kidding, they couldn’t even score a goal on an empty wide-open net last night. This is why they can’t have four days off =p

We also saw him being a lazy petulant child who never gave a damn any more than Kovalev did but at least Kovy showed up in the playoffs now and then.

Lacked character, will and heart. Fits right into a going-nowhere franchise like Minnesota, it’s a pity Koivu’s brother is asked to lift that team out of obscurity but the Koivus are too classy to ever call out their teams for being crap and wasting their prime years.

Carey may have made more spectacular saves than Martin F, as Boone
mentioned, but he also let in more terrible goals. I have read a lot of
posts that mention – and rightfully so – that it’s not Carey’s fault
that the Habs lost when we score no goals. Just curious though – when
was Carey’s last shutout?

And…Gomez is not Hitler’s grandson as TomNickle mentioned a
previous thread.
– he’s a good guy who’s grossly overpaid, and a foolish cap hit for his
limited
production. We need to lose that contract. He is simply incapable of
producing the amount of points that contract dictates he should get. And
that’s not a knock on Gomez, in case you’re wondering – I think there are maybe only 8 or 10 players in the league that deserve that much money, if that. And only 2 that deserve more.

Hate Lats for succeeding elsewhere? Why? All every1 could see on this site were his supposed defficiencies. I hope he keeps scoring and hitting and getting assists.

Everyone else on the Habs was supposed to be better than Lats. Not so. Can’t teach size.

14 shots and 3 goals. 2 were stoppable. However, it didn’t matter how many Price saved last night because Habs played noncommital ho-hum hockey after another layoff. This team needs a game every 2 nights to stay sharp. If not, the rust is hard to scrape off.

For the Habs to play their cute fancy hockey, they must have room. The Devils didn’t give them any. BTW JM should tell his team that they are allowed to use the body. The Devils were interfering all night with the body but the refs refused to call it.

Now …..

Listless Habs: Just what the doctor ordered for the struggling Devils

I woke up – comme d’habitude- to listen to this game at 5:30am. The only difference was that this time I was awake for a second reason: to track a tropical storm which, right about the time that Gionta got swindled by his old buddy into getting a 2nd errant penalty, had turned into a Category 1 hurricane (or Cyclone as they call them in these parts; “Cyclone Giri”.). I quickly called my team in the field to make sure they were bunkered down or at least safely on their way to the Delta. They were. The only Yay of the Day.

If it hadn’t been for this Hurricane (which is now catugory 2 and pummeling a very very poor and basic area of the planet…), this would have been yet another unmemorable day courtesy of the Devils.

Positive. I use the yahoo game log where you can read each and every box score from the last several years. But if commend you on being able to remember that far back, and be specific about it.

You might being thinking about the Dec/07 games vs the leafs where Deveraux score with like 4 minutes left to spoil Carey’s shutout and the habs won 4-1. Same thing happened two nights before against the Flyers, only it was Knuble with 5 minutes left to finish the game 4-1 for the Habs.

Well, #@$! happens, especially when Marty F. is in town. Only 9 shutouts? It really does seem like more.

I wasn’t expecting much. That four day layoff was badly timed, as the Habs seemed to be heating up. They shot enough pucks, but they lack that down low presence to make the rebounds – when they happen – dangerous. I don’t care what Latendresse is doing in Minnesota, though I hate him a little for not doing it here.

For tonight, I can’t really fault JM. The game plan seemed solid, but they just couldn’t cash. Then again, a more innovative or motivating coach could possibly have gotten his players to adapt to Jersey’s style and make more happen. So I guess what I’m saying is I do fault JM … big news, I know. Most of all, I’m looking at the nominal 1st line. Gomez and Gionta and whomever is sent onto their line to die. I totally agree with splitting them up. Give Gomez Cammalleri and Kostitsyn and make Plekanec really earn that salary by playing with Gionta and Moen/Pyatt/Boyd whatever. Pleks will still get it done, and better wingers might bring Gomez to life.

I thought Carey looked good – yet another case of poor goal support – and props to JM for giving PK so much ice. I am relieved by that.

Habs will win their next game by a goal. Markov will be back soon, and that will make a big difference. The biggest difference, though, needs to come from Gomez. Do something, man. Anything.

I pretty much agree with Boone’s assessment of last night’s boring Devils-style game. But I would add that the Habs were soft on the puck the entire evening and they were out-muscled on just about every opportunity. There was no jump in their game. Brodeur’s shutout was one of the easiest he’s ever earned, despite the 29 shots on goal. Four days off syndrome? Who knows. But when you turn four days off into five days off, as the Habs surely seemed to do last night, chances are you come up on the losing end. File this one, and learn from it.

i half expected a loss tonight. It seems we always come out flat after a long layoff i blame this one on the coaches for not getting the boys up to it. they seemed to play hard enough but it was really all wheel spining. learn from this one guys and bring it next game.

Ripping into Price is only a diversion from what is the real problem with the Habs. Lack of size to put on an effective forecheck/ combined with a mediocre top six leads to few 5 on 5 goals, and when one has PP that stinks, the goalie must allow 2 or less goals a night in order for the team to win. After last nights stinkfest, I am hoping it is not an omen for a rotten year!

Soryy, Shiloh- you and many others here have been wrong about him from the start. He does what he needs to do to score. For some reason, many of you have been too biased against him to see that he is a scorer that hits.

You hit the nail on the head. If the refs don’t let them interfere and call them early on it, then the game becomes more entertaining. Last night’s spectacle was an advertisement for permanent 4-on-4 hockey.

Like I’ve said before we need to have the mentality, the determination, to win every game. The Habs cannot afford a loss like last nights.

2 points gone. The Habs are a superior team. I had expected them to win last night.

Last night was a large part due to coaching. For those of you who know, Marc Trestmen, coach of the Montreal Alouettes, for example, takes his team in at half time and when things haven’t been going well he makes adjustments to counteract what the opposition is doing. That didn’t happen with the Habs last night.

I’m not talking changing lines, I’m talking strategy. Shoot the puck in, 2 man forecheck, heavy in on the D, start hitting, move the defencemen up… whatever is required to counteract the opposition and allow your team the chance to win. That’s what coaching is about.

The Habs really need to hunker down and become intense like there’s no tomorrow, fierce, determined, unstopable.(sp). Without those attributes I’m afraid even Markov will not make that much difference.

If our team had of shown up, and pulled out a win, we would be tied with Tampa. We played a lousy game of Cricket tonight and lost. So Tampa is going to make the playoffs, we arent. Boucher will be coach of the year, and JM is the worst coach in the NHL.

We are still 3-2-1 without our best player, and this game here BETTER wake our guys up for the next one.

Clay always feels it’s his duty to stick up for t-troll/observer, x-troll and a-troll, but his panties get into a bunch if we stick up for Price. He’s a hypocrite, not worth wasting your energy on the great troll defender.

Xtra spends the better part of a loss blaming Price. He generally gets more offensive, and incoherent, per beer he’s consumed.

The issue is that these haters try to get under the skin of Habs fans who although many might be optimistic are harbouring concerns and anguish with the losses and all issues pertaining to the Habs that don’t involve winning the Cup.

That’s the bottom line. IMHHO trying to kick Habs fans when they are down is not being a Habs fan?

They definitely keep the posts high. They get 10 to 15 responses, to just one of there trolling posts. It’s good for HIO, I guess, but I wouldn’t be sad if I never had to see one of there posts again, or the posts of those that defend them.

…HH …Xtra/Stephen is a big boy who can fight His own battles, so I hesitate to get involved …I mostly, Myself, have a different viewpoint than Stephen …BUT why ? do You call Him a troll ?
…Xtra is a Fan as much as any of Us, …He also has every right to express His contrarian viewpoint as any of Us
…His reservations regarding Carey have equal validity as any of Our more optimistic and hopeful opinions of Carey
…there is a vulgar arrogant tendency among Us that pack-like insult people like Stephen
…really annoying

WTF? Who sh*t in your cornflakes? I work full time, on the other side of the world. I just watched the game vis a torrent site. If you look at my post above that was written before this one, I CLEARLY state that you CAN”T blame Price when we don’t score. But as usual, all you do is judge others and make assumptions.

I’m just a little tired of people showing up and posting the same complaint about Price they more or less posted last week and the week before that. If Xtra has something to post around here it’s “Blah blah Price soft goal destroyed the game” or “Halak would have stopped that” even though Halak is only .500 on the season with his team as well.

Same reason I butt heads with Timo and other people I disagree with, just general recycled negativity and little actual discussion about the game. I wasn’t going at you Clay, I take an issue with the oh-so-predictable Xtra and his BS.

Well, glad you aren’t “going at” me…but you shouldn’t go after him either – not for merely speaking ther truth. It soesn’t really matter what you’re “tired of” – this is a Habs discussion forum, not a cheerleading site, and you’re not the owner of it.

I’m aware and I like to debate the issues that are facing the team, is Hamrlik the issue, or is it Spacek? Should Weber be brought up to boost the PP, do we need to trade for a new physical defencemen? Subban need Hamrlik to balance him out or should he play with Markov on his return? Is Price giving the team the chance to win each night? What’s the 2nd-line solution?

Xtra or Adam76 will show up and complain about Price (at times very inaccurately) and than call those who disagree with them Price cheerleaders or bunnies or whatever along with being delusional fools. It’s become a very repetitive act that has become so repetitive it’s lost all meaning.

i come on here to read what everyone is talking about ….. leave it to you to be the jack ass yet again. Take some of the others advice … go cheer for the Blues. Its people like you that give the rest of the Hab fan base a bad name. I am persoanlly sick of it.

Right Joey…because Price has been the model of consistency and perfection for the past 2 seasons…I mean, that’s all Xtra said, and you’re disputing it. I think maybe you should take that test yourself, if you think Price is above reproach. How about engaging in dialogue instead of just laying out insults?

What a sad display tonight. I was expecting more, as I’m sure most fans were.

This team needs to find ways to score. Sounds like a similar tune, doesn’t it? I’d hoped that issue was solved or improved, but perhaps I was a step ahead of reality.

Price made some spectacular stops – a thrill to watch! However, that flutter shot, which I don’t think he got a good look at, gave me a bad taste and flashbacks of recent times past.

Where was AK tonight?

Is it my imagination or did it look like the Habs were skating in mud all night? I know Jersey has a trap system that makes the game as dull as it gets, but does that mean nobody can play against that system? I think not or Jersey would win every game. JM was not prepared for this type of game and it showed.

Martin F. had an easy night with a couple of lucky breaks. Argh!!!!!!!!!

Here’s hoping the team brings its A game vs. the lowly Sens on Saturday.

Look-it SF, you can blame me and others for Price’s play but like the one poster answered me “he’s been consistant for 6 games”…..six games does not make a career,lol. The boy’s not a no:1 goalie,maybe in 5 years.

I don’t blame anyone for Price’s play, I blame you for whining endlessly about the poor persecuted Jaro Halak and misrepresenting the facts regarding Price because your favourite player left town and you can’t deal with it.

Koivu left, I’ve moved on and he was ten times the hero in Montreal and ten times the man Halak will ever be.

They easiest way to break the trap is to use speed and effective passing…all the players on the team know how to break it…its the same from midget hockey on the way up. The owness lies more on the players than the coach. As for the neurilize speed thing…that would be the effective ness of a wicked forecheck with lots of hitting which they didn’t do … if you want to bust the trap you use speed and dump it in and go hard to the corners for retrieval…all knownfrom like midget hockey on upwards. Just to let people konw every team in the league plays the trap in someform….its too effective not to use. Watch thehabs trap itup from the second period on up.

We don’t have big players but we have speed….can’t have both. Doesn’t exist…..

It wasn’t the most exciting way to spend a Tursday evening, that’s for sure.

When I think of the Devils, the word that comes to mind the most is “frustrating”. Frustrating to watch, and certainly frustrating as hell to play against. It’s like showing up to play a game, and they won’t let you play the game.

I will put back Pouliot back in… wait for it: ” G² ” (use it wisely)… who cares if he can’t score or pass as well. At least it may help the distraction from Gio and G-Love… (man, I can’t believe I wrote that.)

Yeah the Devils played boring hockey, but they were careful. Is there one season they missed the playoffs recently? I guess not, eh.